Just Like a Fairy Tale
by EvenAngelsFall22
Summary: Addison Montgomery hadn't believed in fairy tales in a long time, but that didn't stop her from wishing for one.


**Title: **Just Like a Fairy-Tale  
**Author**: evenangelsfall22 aka Nicole  
**Summary**: Addison Montgomery hadn't believed in fairy-tales in a long time but that didn't stop her from wishing for one.  
**Author's Note: **This is my first attempt at a _Grey's Anatomy _fic! The idea for this piece is taken from a short story by Marian Keyes called _Wishful Thinking._ I read it, thinking it was just the most brilliant idea for a plot ever and when I decided to apply it to a fanfic, just for fun, the only character I thought it would do justice to was Addison. I'll warn you now, it's pretty fluffy.

As always, feedback isn't necessary, but always appreciated.

This is also dedicated to **Splendor734, **who first talked me into tackling an Addison-centric storyline, and who also isn't feeling well today. Hopefully this makes you feel better!

* * *

_When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much fucked no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor. _

I saw this quote once on a poster in one of the doctor's offices on the fifteenth floor. That was months ago and I never gave it a second thought until this very moment when Sydney, yes, _that _Sydney is in front of me with her newest idea on bringing the interns and residents together in a bonding exercise. _If only she knew the bonding activities that went on between all of us behind closed doors_, I think with a barely concealed smirk.

"Addie," Sydney chirps and I snap back to attention. "It's your turn." She holds a basket, excuse me, _an Egyptian wishing basket, _out and waits for me to drop my wish into it.

"It'll be fun!" she had exclaimed minutes earlier. "We all place our wishes in this basket, and as the Egyptian tale promises, they'll all come true! Won't it be fun to see what comes true first?"

_Fun,_ I agreed as I folded up my yellow piece of paper and tossed it into the basket. I watched with mild amusement as everyone followed suit, even Bailey, though the look on her face was priceless.

I'm embarrassed to say I wished for a fairy-tale romance. You know, the kind you dream about when you're a little girl playing with dolls. The kind where Prince Charming sweeps in at the last possible moment and saves you from the evil dragon. I'll be the first to admit, this isn't the kind of thing I'd typically do but I couldn't help it, I was getting desperate. This, this _thing_ with Karev was more trouble than I had been prepared for.

Of course, when everyone asked me what my wish was I told them I had asked for a two week vacation in Cabo San Lucas because honestly, even I knew how pathetic my original wish was. I hated myself, and I hated Alex even more, for turning me into that type of girl.

"You're a liar." Callie corners me in the elevator on my way up to Neonatal.

"What are you talking about?"

"You didn't ask for a vacation." I look at her over the tops of my glasses and she shrugs. "After everyone left I snuck a peek at everyone's wishes. Don't worry, you're not the only one who lied. Cristina didn't wish for happiness with Burke, she actually wished to scrub in on the Hartlett case this afternoon."

"Besides," Callie says as the elevator doors slide open and she steps out. "It's all good fun, right? It's not like Sydney's basket is for real or anything."

"Right," I echo weakly as the doors slid closed between us. I'd never admit it, not even to Callie O'Malley, but part of me was actually hoping that this particular wish would come true.

I had no idea what I was asking for.

* * *

Surprisingly enough, less than a week later I found myself on a date. The best part about him? He wasn't a doctor. He was a real estate broker who frequented the same coffee kiosk I stopped at every morning before entering the hospital and while I had seen him there several times, we had never shared more than a smile as we passed by each other. Yesterday morning however, clichéd as it sounds, we both reached for the same packet of sugar at the same time, resulting in the expected polite laughter which then turned into a brief conversation that somehow led to me agreeing to meet him for dinner the next night. I couldn't think of a reason to say no. He was attractive, shorter than I normally liked, but had amazingly blue eyes. A woman's allowed to be shallow sometimes, right? 

But here we were, almost halfway through the main course, and our conversation was stalled at our careers. It wasn't that Scott and I didn't have anything to talk about, in truth, if we had been able to talk, I think we would have had plenty to say to each other, the only problem we had was we couldn't. From the moment he had sat down, Scott had done nothing but sneeze. He could barely make it through a sentence without stopping three, four, sometimes even five times to sneeze. Being a doctor, naturally I was concerned, and I tried to help, offering up the ideas that he was coming down with a cold, or maybe there was dust in the air and we could change tables, but he was quick to dismiss both.

"I'm sorry Addison," he says, his eyes watering, his nose rimmed in red. "But I think it's you… well, not you," _Sneeze. _"I think it's," _Sneeze. _"Your perfume." _Sneeze. _"I'm very sensitive to scent." _Sneeze. Sneeze. _"I should have warned you."

It's hard to keep the _you have got to be kidding me_ expression off my face but I try to muster up some sympathy, even going as far as to offer to go to the ladies' room to try and wash some of my perfume, the whole three dabs I had on my wrists, off, but Scott just shook his head. During another round of impressive sneezing he decided he was just going to leave but I was free to enjoy the rest of my dinner at his expense.

"I'll call you," he promises with another sneeze and a half-hearted wave. And then he was gone, leaving me with a glass of wine as my date. I knew better, I wouldn't be seeing him again. After all, a girl's gotta wear perfume.

Four more glasses of wine found me back in bed with Mark. What can I say? I'm nothing if not consistent. And I didn't dare go find Alex, even if it's what I was on my way to do when I encountered Mark on my way to Joe's. Denial, it's truly a beautiful thing.

I didn't have time to dwell on Scott, or on my weakness for Mark, or even my ever-growing attraction to Alex because not even three days later I was on a date with Jason. Callie, of all people, had given me his phone number, telling me he was one of her closest friends, that he had a thing for redheads, and was incredibly sweet. To her credit, Callie seemed to know what she was doing, Jason was intelligent, he was a financial consultant, and he had a great sense of humor. An added bonus? He wasn't allergic to Chanel No. 5. Strangely enough, like Scott, he was almost two inches shorter than me, a detail I was more than happy to overlook.

I could only find one flaw with Jason as we finished our dessert, he was extremely shy. He could barely look me in the eye, and whenever I complimented him on something, he blushed about seven shades of red before stammering his reply. It was charming, in a way, so after the next joke he told, I found myself reaching across the table to touch his hand as I laughed. Too fast, too soon, because the second my hand touched his, he jerked away, sending his coffee cup flying across the table, splashing the hot liquid into my lap.

"I'm such a klutz," he says, his face turning a new shade of red as he jumps up and rushes around the table to help me. Ignoring my protests, he begins to dab at my lap with his napkin. When he realizes what he's doing, he blushes _again_, stammering his apologies as he backs away, retreating to his own side of the table again.

We decide to call it a night, and he offers to walk me home, which is so chivalrous and sweet that I take him up on the offer, thinking that maybe, Callie O'Malley has found me my Prince Charming. I change my mind fifteen minutes later, when Jason, after walking me to my front door, leans in for a kiss, one I would have welcomed by the way, only to jump back halfway there and reaches for my hand, shaking it roughly as he bumbles his way through goodnight pleasantries before high-tailing it into the darkness and out of my life.

Who needs Prince Charming anyway?

"You're hot." These not-so-eloquent words are courtesy of a patient in the OR waiting room who has been leering at me every time I've walked past him. "Is it true what they say about redheads?"

"What do they say about redheads?" I ask uninterestedly as I flip through his chart.

"Um…" his voice trails off as his eyes dilate and he tries to remember where he was going with this. "That they're hot," he finishes lamely.

"That we are, Mr. Harding," I say as I look around for his doctor. "Who's patient is this?" I call out to anyone and no one in particular.

"You can call me Christopher, "he slurs as his head falls back against the gurney. I check his chart again. At five feet and seven inches, weighing just barely one hundred and fifty pounds its clear that this guy has more morphine in his system than he can handle.

"Okay Christopher, who's your doctor?"

"If I tell you that, you…" his voice trails off as he sits back up and jabs a finger at me. "You have to go out to dinner with me."

"Sure thing, Mr. Harding," I say, snapping his chart shut and looking around. Olivia is standing nearby and I wave her over, telling her to stay with this guy until his doctor shows up.

Callie comes up behind me, laughing as we watch Olivia try to fend off Christopher Harding's drug-induced advances, as he clearly cannot tell the difference between her and me. "Looks like you passed up a hot date right there. For all you know, he's your Prince Charming," she says with a wink.

"With the way my life's going, I wouldn't be surprised," I say, watching as Dr. Burke finally claims Christopher and rolls his gurney away.

* * *

A week later, Callie corners me at the Nurses' Station. "So," she greets me, "How are you loving your fairy-tale romance?" 

I give her a patented glare over the top of my glasses. "What are you talking about? I'm not having any fairy-tale romance, or honestly, any romance at all."

Callie laughs. "Of course you are! I can't believe you don't see it." She sighs and rolls her eyes at the confused look I knew to be on my face. "Addison, you are so Snow White and you're making your way through the Seven Dwarfs."

"Okay, I think its time we set you up with a psych evaluation," I say, pushing around her to grab a file. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Think about it Addison." Callie's eyes gleamed as she blocks my getaway. "They've all been shorter than you, right? And their personalities, well, let's take a look at those. There was Scott, the allergic fool, he was clearly Sneezy. And as for Jason? The poor guy is definitely Bashful. And who was the patient that kept hitting on you yesterday?

"Christopher," I muttered.

"Right, Christopher. He was so out of it from the morphine, he's obviously Dopey." Callie's eyes danced even more, and it was clear she was enjoying this. "And not to point out the obvious ones, but well, McDreamy? He's Doc. I suppose Mark could be Doc as well, but have you seen him today? He's one hell of a Grumpy asshat."

"Hah!" I smile triumphantly at Callie, eager to prove her wrong. "Derek and Mark are both taller than me."

Callie smirks. "They look like dwarfs to me," she says as she turns me around. My heart jumps into my throat as I see Derek and Mark walking down the corridor with their patient, a man who is well over seven feet tall. Can Callie be right? Am I Snow White?

I sigh. "I can't even remember the rest of the Dwarfs," I say, my voice full of resignation. "Who do I have left to get through?

"Happy and Sleepy."

* * *

Callie's words stay with me through the duration of my shift, and before I know it, I find myself at Joe's, sipping on a vodka tonic and eyeing every guy in the bar, wondering which one, if any, would be my next Dwarf. 

"Can I join you?" Alex sits down next to me before I can answer and promptly orders a beer. While he's waiting for it he leans over and grabs my drink, finishing it in one long swallow before setting the empty glass back down. He winks at me and then turns to order a second drink for me. It's these kinds of things that only Alex Karev can get away with and that I can find sexy.

"Long day?" I ask, the sympathy I sometimes feel for these interns creeping into my voice as I too, remember being first-year.

"Too long," he says with a nod. He stretches his arms up and behind him as he yawns. "I'm so sleepy I almost forgot to put my shoes on before leaving the hospital."

My heart stops at the word _sleepy. _Karev can't be Sleepy! He's too tall!

"Deanna didn't make it," he says somberly, speaking of a seven-month pregnant car crash victim we had treated earlier in the day. "The baby's fine but she died about an hour ago."

"Her injuries were severe," I say gently, not bothering to add that I knew before I left that she wouldn't survive the night. He still needs to learn not to get too emotionally attached to his patients, though honestly, this entire group of interns seemed to have that same problem. They all slept with their superiors and they all became emotionally invested in their patients. _They'll make excellent surgeons one day,_ I think with a half smile as I realize they're no different than Mark or Derek or I.

Our drinks arrive and he finished half of his in one swoop before turning back to me. "I love my job, don't get me wrong Addison, I love saving lives."

"But?"

"But…." his voice trails off and he finished the rest of his drink before turning back to me. "When I lose one, I just… I don't know… I feel so small."

I choke on my own drink then, the vodka burning as it races uninvited down my throat. "Small?" I sputter.

He nods. "Miniscule, even." He shakes his head and finishes his beer, pushing the empty bottle aside. "But I don't want to talk about that anymore," he decides as he inches his barstool closer to mine. I inhale deeply, taking in the scent of his cologne as he moves even closer.

"What then, do you want to talk about?" I trip over my words, wishing I could blame the quickly ingested alcohol, but knowing its just being in such close proximity to this man that turns me into a bumbling school girl.

"I don't want to talk," he says as his hand moves to tuck my hair behind my right ear. Before I can stop him, he's leaning forward, he's kissing the spot just behind my ear, he's trailing his tongue down my neck… _Oh God…_

"Alex…" my voice trails off as his other hand plants itself firmly at my waist, pulling me closer, his mouth now working its way up the other side of my neck, stopping just centimeters from my lips.

"Addison." My eyes open and he's staring directly into them. "Let's forget everything we know tonight," he proposes. "Let's just not care about the consequences or even what all of this will mean tomorrow." His mouth is on mine in a searing kiss before I can object, though there's no way in hell I would have been able to at this point. He moves away before our kiss goes to deep and he pulls me to my feet. At this moment I knew I'd go with him even before he spoke his next words.

"Tonight, let's just be happy. Make me happy."


End file.
